Dollieh Sanctuary

I am working on a new doll, Deer Woman - she is a deer spirit in Native American folklore who lives in the forest. She sometimes appears as a beautiful young woman who has deer hooves instead of feet, which is how I choose to portray her. You can read more about Deer Woman here: http://www.native-languages.org/deer-woman.htm

Unfortunately, I could not find pearls or beads in the color and sizes I need to make this doll jointed. Other than that, I'm really happy with how she's comig along Here are a few photos, and you can see several more on my blog and Flickr, links are in my signature.


WIP Deer Woman by Vasilisa's Dolls, on Flickr

More photos in the next post...

WIP Deer Woman by Vasilisa's Dolls, on Flickr



WIP Deer Woman by Vasilisa's Dolls, on Flickr

Now I need to get started on her "deerskin" dress. I will post more soon! ^_^

Squee, she looks amazing! The colour of her skin beads are gorgeous! Will you be making her dress out of real leather? That would be so unique for a doll, and add some fantastic realism! ^.^

I love her braided jet black bead hair. Is there any chance she will get a removable antler headband? I remember those since they were really popular in lolita a few years back...

Thank you!! No, I have some health problems that prevent me from working with leather, unfortunately. Her dress will be made of beads too, but I have a really cute idea for it ^_^ I am keeping it a secret for now, because I'm not sure if it's going to work or not yet. But if I see that it's going to work out, I'll post a little sneak peek

I was not planning on a headband, but I like the idea! It would be cute. So if I can get it to work without wire, I think I will do it! Thank you for suggesting it

She is gorgeous! The hair is actually braided? Very cool. I like the fingers. Those always give me trouble with my handmade dolls. How are they strung if you don't mind my asking?

clorista wrote:She is gorgeous! The hair is actually braided? Very cool. I like the fingers. Those always give me trouble with my handmade dolls. How are they strung if you don't mind my asking?

Thank you! Yes, the hair is braided. I am particularly happy with the fingers, when I made knitted dolls I couldn't give them actual fingers, although I tried. It always bothered me. You should check out my beaded BJD, Esmeralda, she's in another thread on here - she has toes too ^_^

As for how they are strung... Do you mean which beading stitches I used? Because I use a combination of several, and my techniques are kind of... unorthodox. (I am self-taught in beading, half the time I really don't know w what I'm doing!) Plus, I write my patterns in Kind of an odd way. So it's hard to explain how I do things

Toes! *runs off to find Esmeralda* I know what you mean about the knitting (although for me it's crochet) the dolls always end up with little flipper hands. I don't know as much about beading as I'd like so you could tell me all sorts of unorthodox stitches and I would look on with stars in my eyes at the wisdom. I would very much like to try now using beads for hands and feet on dolls (maybe not a whole beaded doll...not there yet) especially if they can have toes!

clorista wrote:Toes! *runs off to find Esmeralda* I know what you mean about the knitting (although for me it's crochet) the dolls always end up with little flipper hands. I don't know as much about beading as I'd like so you could tell me all sorts of unorthodox stitches and I would look on with stars in my eyes at the wisdom. I would very much like to try now using beads for hands and feet on dolls (maybe not a whole beaded doll...not there yet) especially if they can have toes!

haha Yeah, my knitted dolls had kind of like... paws, I guess. I always embroidered "nails" onto them to make them more hand-like, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, that's for sure.

I wouldn't say it's wisdom I have been teaching myself beading techniques using online tutorials, and then I adapt them to achieve the look I want. And my beaded doll pattern was actually adapted from a knitting pattern I wrote a few years ago. A lot of times I just make things up as I go along, and sometimes I can't even figure out how I did it afterwards! I've taken to writing everything down as I'm doing it, just so I'll have a clue later.

For you, I would say to check out a page with many different beading techniques, I like this one: http://www.fusionbeads.com/Techniques If you see one you want to learn, you can usually find video tutorials on YouTube for them too. But for the fingers and toes I do, it's really hard to explain how I did it, it's not any particular stitch, I just made it up somehow... But if you learn a few different stitches, maybe you will be able to make something up too! I find that the more I learn, the more I can alter to do things like that I've only been beading for a year, so I've still got a lot to learn!

Do you find that using a stiffer thread helps to hold the shape of the fingers? I tried stinging some beads and they got super floppy but I think the holes might not be big enough to allow the fine gauge wire I have.

clorista wrote:Do you find that using a stiffer thread helps to hold the shape of the fingers? I tried stinging some beads and they got super floppy but I think the holes might not be big enough to allow the fine gauge wire I have.

It probably would. But I don't like using synthetic threads like nylon or PE (long health/environment-related story). So far I have used organic cotton thread, and it works pretty well. I am currently making a new doll using ahimsa silk thread, because silk is stronger than cotton. I haven't made the hands and feet yet though, so we'll see how it goes... Just be sure, whatever thread you use, to pull really tight when doing the fingers - but not so tight that it curls them. Tension is tricky, but so very important